I’m just taking a breather from going through box after box of my late parent’s ‘stuff’ which has been living in our well-named ‘box-room’ for the last few years.
I’m extremely fortunate that my father had a huge interest in photography whilst Mother was big into writing. So, it’s like having a family, as well as a social, history in words and pictures at my finger tips.
I was more than surprised to find a little note that I wrote to Mother when I was about six. It’s written on what looks like the middle pages of a small note book and and has Mama on the outside. Here’s the note itself:
I know I was about six because of the reference to Frecky, or Freckles, who was one of a litter of pups that our lovely Dalmation, Beauty, had when I was that age. The arrival and departure of those puppies was one of the biggest events of my childhood.
Not long after finding this note to Mother, I came upon a photograph that Father took of me on the wooden swing that was just beside the cobbled yard where the pups played. We were living in Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, in the first Bank House of our family life.
They were happy, happy days and I can’t but smile at how I seemed to see twenty as being an absolute age away. I suppose it was, in many respects. Twenty certainly seems like a good while back now, though!!
I wonder if Mother even contemplated the possibility that I would find the note all these years on. I’m just so glad that she did my bidding and kept it.
Photo: Frank Tubridy
SOCIAL BRIDGE ~ Jean Tubridy connecting with you from Ireland 